


The Language of Blood and Pain

by fuzzytale



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Bloodplay, M/M, Pseudo-Incest, Temporary Character Death, Violence, implied off-panel rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-14
Updated: 2012-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-03 15:02:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzytale/pseuds/fuzzytale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos is in a sour mood, but it’s nothing a little blood and violence won’t cure</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Language of Blood and Pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morganleri_fic](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=morganleri_fic).



> Set back in the heyday of the Horsemen, when they were industriously raping and pillaging their way through everything in their path.
> 
> Written for morganleri_fic as part of the 2010 Highlander Holiday Shortcuts gift fic exchange

“Where do we go next, Brother?” Kronos’s voice is quiet in rare deference to the stillness of the night and Methos’ contemplative mood.

“There is a city to the west,” he murmurs in answer, gaze fixed on the crackle and burn of the fire rather than his brother’s face. “The caravan master insisted it holds great stores of gold, and its people fear no one and claim mastery of all the land for leagues around.” The caravan master, of course, had thought he could bargain his knowledge for his life. The fool.

“Exaggerations,” Kronos points out as he runs the point of a fine dagger carefully beneath his nails.

“Of course.” Methos shrugs. The humans always lie, thinking that some tale of riches just over the next line of hills will save their worthless lives. “But there is doubtless some wealth, and people who need to learn the meaning of fear.”

Kronos makes an inarticulate sound of satisfaction and sets his knife aside before tossing another branch onto the fire. “We will teach them fear like their feeble minds cannot even imagine, Brother,” he promises, voice low and dark with anticipation, and Methos smiles to hear it.

The sounds of the camp around them are quiet, almost muted, and for the moment no voices save their own break the stillness of the night. The slaves who tend them know better than to risk their masters’ ire by making any noise louder than the soft rustle of fabric or the quiet scuff of bare feet over rocky ground, and the horses are quiet, asleep in their pickets. The only sound to rival the murmur of their own voices is the crackle of the fire, and Methos leans back in the crude camp stool he took as his own from the wreckage of the caravan they looted that afternoon to watch the sparks fly up, dancing crazily as they reach higher and higher towards the heavens before fading to nothingness.

Much like the people of this land, he thinks. The people of every one of the lands they pass through, century after century. They reach for their gods, offer prayer and sacrifice and endless, _whining_ supplication, in a vain attempt to bargain for their safety, refusing to accept how utterly futile it is. Unable to believe that they will be snuffed out as easily as sparks rising from the fire, their lives just as brief and meaningless. And decidedly less brilliant.

Their gods are nothing, and talk of them sets his teeth on edge. If they ever existed they have abandoned their worshipers to the tender mercies of he and his brothers. New gods who know and care nothing of either tenderness or mercy. They are gods of death and destruction, and his teeth flash white in the darkness as he grins at Kronos across the fire.

“It’s mine!” An angry bellow breaks the stillness and the smile twists to a grimace. He sits forward on his stool again and turns his head towards the commotion as Silas continues, voice only getting louder and more strident. “I won it fairly, give it here now!”

“If you want it so badly, why don’t you take it, _Brother_?” There’s a sneer in Caspian’s voice as he taunts from the shadows beyond the fire’s reach, and Methos pushes to his feet with an aggravated snarl. The voices are coming closer, accompanied by scuffling footsteps and intermittent grunts, and Methos has had his fill of their brothers’ bickering and more today.

He has every intention of making good on his promise to Caspian that he would make him regret it if he could not keep peace for at least the rest of the day and he is standing, expression cold, when his brothers step from the darkness. He is not surprised to see that Caspian holds a small golden stag clutched in one hand, its elegant neck straining back to lay elaborately curling antlers along its back. He saw it in the wreckage of the main tent after this afternoon’s raid and has no doubt that Caspian took it simply because he knew that Silas would covet it.

That is more than sufficient justification as he steps forward, past Silas who has already turned to him in entreaty, and pulls the dagger from his belt to slide it into Caspian’s side. It goes in without resistance, and Caspian makes a faint sound of surprise that cuts off as Methos angles the blade smoothly into his kidney. Shock is a beautiful thing.

“I told you I wanted _quiet_ tonight,” he growls in Caspian’s ear as he jerks the blade free. Caspian is already slumping forward, the statue falling from nerveless fingers, and Methos slides an arm around his shoulders almost companionably as he steps to the side, steadying him just long enough to slip the blade between his ribs, angled up to find his heart. “Next time, maybe you’ll listen.”

Caspian’s only response is a sigh as Methos releases him, and he turns away even as Caspian’s body topples forward, blood soaking dark into the dirt before the fire. “Take your bauble and go,” he orders Silas, who has watched thus far in silence.

“Thank you, Brother.” He’s already crouching down to collect his now blood-stained trophy with a pleased smile. 

“Yes, just...go.” Methos waves him away with the still dripping dagger before stooping to wipe the blood from it on Caspian’s shoulder as he turns back to Kronos, who never rose from his own seat by the fire.

“Tetchy tonight, are we Brother?” Kronos is grinning at him, obviously amused by the display of temper. “He’ll be impossible tomorrow, you know.”

Methos rolls his eyes and prods indelicately at Caspian’s corpse with a toe. “I told him I’d tolerate no more bickering today,” is the only explanation he bothers to offer. Kronos knows as well as he does, after all, that Caspian engineered the quarrel with Silas for his own amusement. He’s nothing if not predictable in that respect. “Send the sloe-eyed slave girl to tend him and he’ll have forgotten by the morning.” He won’t, of course, but he will likely pretend to. At least until an opportunity for payback presents itself. Caspian is predictable in this as well.

“And you, Brother?” When Methos turns his gaze away from the embers of the fire he finds Kronos has risen to his feet. “What will it take to ensure that you’ve forgotten by morning? I don’t fancy another day in the saddle next to you brooding and snarling.”

He steps closer, until the width of Caspian’s body is all that separates them, and Methos cocks his head and spins the dagger almost lazily between his fingers, firelight glinting off the bronze as it turns. “I can think of some few things,” he murmurs as the blade flashes suddenly between them. It stops with a single bright bead of blood welling up where the its tip is pressed to the hollow of Kronos’ throat.

“Can you, Brother?” Kronos licks his lips and grins, slow and dark with promise as his own blade barely nicks the fabric over Methos’s heart.

******************************

The only light is a guttering oil lamp affixed to the tent’s center pole, and it casts wildly dancing shadows across the thickly carpeted ‘floor’ and up the walls. Methos isn’t watching the shadows, though. He’s watching the light flicker and catch on the sweat glinting on Kronos’s chest and shoulders, the way the tendons in his neck tense and bunch, then smooth again. He is not watching the path of the dagger - his dagger - as Kronos drags it slowly across his chest and belly. He can feel the burn of it, the blood welling, and see the dark satisfaction in his brother’s eyes. That’s all he needs.

This is their shared language. Blood and pain. This is what they understand, what they both glory in. The difference is that, where Kronos enjoys only its infliction, Methos can appreciate all the beauty of pain, and he hisses quietly and arches up into the press of the dagger as Kronos drags it almost delicately along his ribs. The flash of healing in the knife’s wake, like a tiny lightning storm across his skin, is nearly as satisfying as the cuts themselves.

It quiets his mind as little else can, plans and machinations fading to insignificance as he focuses entirely on the trail the knife burns across his flesh. Only when everything else in his mind has gone silent, when the only thing he can think of is his brother’s weight balanced over his hips and the sting of the blade as it smoothly parts his skin, does Methos arch deliberately up, lips parted and head tipped back as he grinds against Kronos. Only then does the blade stop.

Perversely, perhaps, that signals the end of anything even vaguely resembling gentleness, and Kronos’s mouth is hard and almost cruel when he bends to bring their lips together. Methos is no more tender, biting savagely into what can only be loosely termed a kiss, copper bright on his tongue and grip bruisingly tight on his brother’s hips as they rut against each other, his blood slick between them.

There is nothing gentle or tender about any of it, now. It’s all rough hands and sharp teeth and barely contained violence. Blood and bruises and _pain_. Methos grunts at the burn of it as Kronos finally pushes into him, teeth bared in a rictus. But he’s pushing into the burn, and his nails are gouging crescents into Kronos’s hips as he pulls him down and in.

They don’t speak, they don’t ever speak, and the only sounds are grunts and gasps, occasional growled curses, and deep, guttural moans as the lamp casts flickering shadows over sweat and blood slicked skin. And when it’s over, both sated with blood and violence as much as sex, they roll away from each other, silent still. There is no touching, though Kronos will stay where he is rather than staggering back to his own tent in the pre-dawn stillness.

In the morning Methos’s broodiness of days past will have vanished along with the marks on his skin, and they will speak of plans for the day and debate the best route for reaching the promised city to the west with a minimum of delay and a maximum of violence. Because it is the violence, as always, that matters above all else.


End file.
